Some thougts on religion while visiting China.

I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, Bishadi.

 

...or conformity.

Yes. We naturally seek answers, I would argue. But it is the very strength of this innate desire that can lead us astray. We want answers so much that given the choice between grabbing a ready answer and waiting for a convincing answer, we very often settle for the former.

 

Bishadi is alright. I hate it when people pick on him for difficulty with English, as if that has any effect at all on what he means. Still he loves to wield his bullhorn of truth even as he employs indefensible fallacies.

 

i dont have any feelings for you.

people like you are more like a stone to rise up with.

i step on yur BS to enable better light for others to see with

 

tanks shmo

name one

perhaps that you adher to the 2lot and i dont?

the fallacy of the 'law' is the idea of equlibration without comprehending why.

i know the 'why' and you dont

otherwise the only other fallacy i can think of is the concepts of the future events, in which i cant claim any foundations other than seeing the train wreck combined with what others claimed. but to hold integrity to the sustaining of 'will it happen'........ then i cannot claim the events as being fact.

to sustain that mankind will understand itself, that fact i can sustain and perhaps you just dont like it as it is so simple that most anyone with enough information would be able to say 'why didnt i think of that?'

it's stupid east.

and it aint my fault but rather it is that stupid easy and i can easily inquire, 'why didnt you?'

 

Even in the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah it was always easiest to worship with the false gods. Why is that do you think?

 

how about how easy it is to worchip the same god and neither team believes the other

 

It's easy enough. Is Jesus Christ the son of the living God?

 

no more than you or i (john 14;20, genisis 3;22)

or better still...... YOU are a child of god and so is charles manson

but jesus wasnt 'christ' as torah predicted and as jesus charged his disciples not to call him that (matt 16;20)

 

He told them not to tell anyone.

that WAS easy.

 

Faith = belief that is not based on proof.
Reason = to form conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.

I stand by my statement that faith is the antithesis of reason. And certainly, they are in opposition, and mutually exclusive.

 

I did not say that it was an explanation, I said it was reasonable to believe at that time given the state of technology.

I think the problem is that many people want to believe they know "the truth." The fact is, in most instances, we do not. The evolution debate is a perfect example of this. Both sides claim to know "the truth" and labor under the assumption that their belief is correct--one coming from the scientific perspective, and the other from the supernatural, but neither being conclusive when applied to "the big questions."

Reasonable maybe if you live in a remote part of Papua New Guinea isolated from the modern world. But not if you live nearly anywhere else where you would have access to scholarly research that pretty much conclusively confirms that Galileo was right all along. Good thing we can no longer be tried for heresy--at least in the West.

Maybe I don't understand your point, but I have never heard a Christian, for example, offer any explanation other than divine creation for the existence of every single thing animal, vegetable, or mineral, and of all things great and small. You pretty much have to believe that to call yourself a Christian, or a Jew, etc..

I believe that is what's known as faith. And is, as I have already established, the antithesis of reason.

What else would you call "belief that is not based on evidence"?

 

What would you call claiming to have "the truth" when you do not?

 

That faith is for us to follow today. There was plenty of proof in those days, hence the books of the New Testament written by eye witnesses and reputable persons who interviewed those eye witnesses. Isn't it astounding also that not once has anyone, in particular the apostles who were martyred, not one of them confessed that it was all a big joke. People don't do that. People don't die for a hoax.

 

Sure. Community demandsconformity.

Yes, and that is precisely faith's deficiency. The human animal is very good at assimilating. We just want to believe that what we believe is correct--most of us, anyway--to provide psychological comfort. Having to wrestle with the big questions is a lot of work. It's much easier to just believe like everyone else--particularly considering that there is safety in numbers.

 

Not sure I understand your point.

 

that's what i say. (stupid easy)

 

i dont know, as i dont have that problem

ie.... not a once have you proved I do not

If you are talking about when others claim to have the truth and THEY do not, then they are liars.

 

the faith to have is that ONE day, the truth will come

which of the so called witnesses could write or even said they could write?

and if someone per se interviewed them witnesses, then second hand is all it is.

Have you ever read a book on UFO's..... how many so called eyewitnesses were interviewed?

 

OK, I think we're making some progress. How about people who are asked to prove the "truth" they claim to have and can not? What of them? Are they also liars?

 

Compare it to a man who gives his girlfriend a ring and says, "This ring explains my love for you".

Well, does it? Yes and no. Even if the woman was an ethologist who knew all about the well studied behavior of presenting gifts as part of courtship rituals, it contains very few empirical clues about the emotional complex we call love. But in an entirely different context, it explains everything the woman needs to know about her partners affection for her. The statement simply has no application outside this latter context.

Likewise, divine creation explains nothing in terms of empiri and the physical world. And it is not supposed to. But it explains alot when employed in another context.

Because a monotheistic god cannot be a non-creator god (that would place it anywhere between a patron god and a mischievous hobgoblin, not as a spiritually sovereign deity), creation of the universe explains everything about the godhead it is attributed to. That's the sole application of divine creation. It is of no worth outside of that application. Which, indeed, is why it fails every time it is dragged out of the context in which it belongs.

Nothing. That's a fully adequate description of faith.

However, something cannot be not the antithesis of reason if it is not about reasoning. That's like calling a boat the antithesis of a car because it can't drive. Except a boat is not about driving, so it's not.

Belief without evidence is highly useful. We use it all the time when there's no need to employ reasoning. For example, when feeling a bit peckerish walking past a grocery store, I don't prevent myself from stealing an apple because I start to contemplate the earths scarce ressources and the frowning upon of such social shortcuts as not working for food. I just don't do it because it feels wrong.

In fact, if I start to bring reasoning into it then I move away from the application of morality that originally prevented me from stealing the apple and into another area that may actually not prevent me from stealing the apple.

Just like another other belief without evidence (a.k.a. a priori belief) religious faith does not employ reasoning but acceptance at face value. So it's not the antithesis of reason, per se. It's when the attempt is made to apply religious faith to things outside the context of faith that it may clash with such areas as the faculty of reasoning.

Creationism, for example, is the antithesis of reasoning. But divine creation is not.

 

Oops, that should've been peckish, not peckerish

 

Reason does not require "proof." They are not opposites. Faith and reason can and should work together in a person's belief system.

 

whats the reason for faith?

 

ask why.......

then measure the answer

find that in the answer of why